RESEARCH TEAMS AND ORGANIZATIONS
A
Arethas Institute. The Mediterranean Research Institute for Paleography, Bibliology and History of Texts. Mediterranean Institute of Paleographic Research, Bibliology and Text History in Athens, Greece.
B
Beyond Canon Collaborative Research Group (CRG). This research group at the Universität Regensburg in Regensburg, Germany, “focus on literary traditions beyond the biblical canon, on their diverse, often material forms of expression and starting points in “lived” and “popular” religion, and on their underestimated significance in the ritual life of the churches. The concept of the “intellectual space of late antiquity” is thereby expanded in the sense of a discourse space that also includes things and practices. This interdisciplinary approach not only promises insights into the rather implicit mechanisms of religious communication and the making of theological knowledge, but it can also make an innovative contribution to general questions of canonical processes and alternative authorities as they are explored in cultural sciences and humanities.”
Biblical Manuscripts Society. This “non-profit organization dedicated to the protection, preservation and promotion of Biblical Manuscripts and early versions of the Holy Bible in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin, old/rare editions and early translations of the Bible, as well as documenting the history of the Bible down through the centuries. The vision of the Bible Manuscript Society is to open up the field of Old and New Testament textual studies to all members of the general public who wish to have access to the original manuscripts of God’s Word for themselves.”
Biblical Texts, Cultures and Receptions Research Group. The research group at the University of Oslo-Faculty of Theology, in Oslo, Norway, "consists of a group of scholars who all in various ways study the production, transmission, use, and reception of biblical and related texts. The texts studied by the members of the group include the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, New Testament, apocryphal literature, the Nag Hammadi Codices, rabbinic texts, hagiographies, monastic texts, and the writings of the Church Fathers”.
C
Center for New Testament Restoration (CNTR). This research center’s aims are: “a) To apply a scientific approach to the age-old question, “what were the original autographs of the New Testament? b) To release electronic transcriptions of every available extant Greek manuscript containing portions of the New Testament up to the year 400 AD, many of which still cannot be found anywhere else. The CNTR database now contains over 1.8 million words featuring over 200 of the earliest witnesses from extant manuscripts. All of these witnesses have been aligned into the highly-acclaimed CNTR computer-generated collation. c) Toprovide an English interlinear view of the collation so that for the first time in history, the average person who does not know Greek is now able to see where the variant readings are and can get an idea of what they mean. All of the manuscripts and critical texts have been morphologically parsed to the same scheme and displayed with Enhanced Strongs Numbers which had never been done before.”
Center for Research of Biblical Manuscripts and Inscriptions (CRBMI). This research center at Shepherds Theological Seminary in Cary, North Carolina, USA, “provides advanced teaching and research in biblical textual criticism and manuscript studies. The scope of the teaching and research conducted by the center primarily involves textual criticism of the Greek and Hebrew Bible, including cooperative participation with external projects involving the textual transmission history of the Bible. Additional projects of the center include the study of ancient extra-biblical manuscripts or inscriptions that inform our textual research of the Bible.”
Centre for the Study of Manuscripts Cultures (CSMC). This research at the Universität Hamburg, in Hamburg, Germany, “creates a cross-disciplinary and international research environment for the holistic study of handwritten artefacts and the rich diversity of global manuscript cultures beyond traditionally held boundaries of academic discipline, time, and space.”
Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM). This research center in Plano, Texas, USA, “under the umbrella of the Center for the Research of Early Christian Documents (CRECD), exists for the following purposes: a) To provide digital photographs of extant Greek New Testament manuscripts so that such images can be preserved, duplicated without deterioration, and accessed by scholars doing textual research. b) To analyze individual scribal habits in order to better predict scribal tendencies in any given textual problem. c) To utilize developing technologies (e.g. OCR and MSI) to read these manuscripts and create exhaustive transcriptions. d) To develop electronic tools for the examination and analysis of New Testament manuscripts. e) To publish on various facets of New Testament textual criticism. f) To cooperate with other institutes in the great and noble task of determining the wording of the autographa of the New Testament.”
H. Milton Haggard Center for New Testament Textual Studies (CNTTS). This research center "founded in 1998 and located on the campus of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, is devoted to the study of the New Testament text in the Greek manuscripts. The Center (CNTTS) emphasizes the study of the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. The CNTTS houses a substantial collection of NT Greek manuscripts in digital, microfilm, and facsimile format with expansion of the current collection ongoing.”
D
Dead Sea Scrolls Institute (DSSI). This research institute at Trinity Western University, in British Columbia, Canada, “supports the research of scholars across campus and in the community whose work explores the significance of the Qumran discoveries for the words of scripture and the worlds beyond it. Since its inception in 1995, the DSSI has become an international leader in developing research tools for Qumran studies, hosting public events and academic conferences on current topics in Dead Sea Scrolls, and providing advanced training for students in the textual, historical, linguistic, and cultural contexts of these remarkable finds.”
Dead Sea Scroll Foundation. This independent research foundation in Jerusalem, Israel and in USA “supports the publications of the Dead Sea Scrolls and related projects. From 1991-2010 the Foundation supported the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (40 volumes, Oxford University Press). The Foundation also supported the production of the Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance (3 volumes, Brill). The Foundation serves as a clearing house and information center for many matters relating to scrolls research and scholarship.”
E
Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL). The Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL), in California, USA, “uses digital technologies to make manuscripts and other historical source materials accessible for study and appreciation by scholars and the public. EMEL and its affiliated experts offer creative solutions to digitally recover and record vulnerable cultural heritage.”
G
Groningen Qumran Institute. This research institute at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, “founded in 1961 by the late Professor Adam van der Woude. It is the only research center where the study of ancient Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls is central.The Qumran Institute is involved in editing leading scholarly publications (journals and monograph series). It plays a central role in the so called Groningen - Leuven - Oxford Network for Dead Sea Scrolls.”
H
Hellenic Heritage Imaging Center (HHIC). “The Hellenic Heritage Imaging Center, in Los Angeles, California, USA, is a framework for collaborative research on the application of technologies, especially digital imaging technologies, to the written and material heritage of Greece and other Mediterranean peoples and cultures. The collaborating institutions see to identify, define, and develop new collaborative research projects to: a) capture, recover, document, analyze, interpret, preserve, and make broadly discoverable and accessible cultural heritage materials of Greece and other Mediterranean peoples and cultures, b) develop and implement innovative technological solutions to questions or problems in cultural heritage studies and preservation.”
I
Institüt für Neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF). This institute’s aim in Münster, Germany, “is to research the textual history of the New Testament and to reconstruct its Greek initial text on the basis of the entire manuscript tradition, the early translations and patristic citations. Foremost among the results of this research is the ongoing publication of the Editio Critica Maior, which has been accepted by the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts as one of their long-term research projects in 2007. Moreover, INTF produces several more editions and a variety of tools for New Testament scholarship, including the concise editions known as the Nestle-Aland and the UBS Greek New Testament. Many of the results of its work are also available to the wider public at the adjoining Bible Museum, which is affiliated with the Institute.”
Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing (ITSEE). This Institute at the University of Birmingham, in Birmingham, United Kingdom, “is founded on the premise that computer methods are now fundamental to every stage of the editorial process. They use digital tools to locate and view the original materials; to transcribe them into electronic form; to compare the texts and to analyze the patterns of variation; and we publish them electronically.”
M
Manuscript Cultures and Modern Knowledge Production Research Group. This research group at the Centre of the Advanced Study of Religion (CASR) of the MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society in Oslo, Norway, focuses on the study of ancient manuscripts. “The members of this research group work on Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic and Latin religious manuscripts using theoretical resources from critical archive studies, new philology, feminist theory, and post-colonial thought. . . Historiographical, epistemic, methodological and theoretical problems connected to the study of ancient manuscripts expand upon traditional philological approaches and lead us to ask about how, why, by whom and for what purpose ancient manuscripts were used in the construction of academic disciplines, religious identities or racialized hierarchies.”
O
The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature. This research center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Jerusalem, Israel, “was established in 1995 as part of the Institute for Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Center aims to stimulate and foster research on the Scrolls, particularly the great task of integrating the new information gained from the Scrolls into the body of knowledge about Jewish history and religion in the Second Temple period. Such integration affects the study of the Bible, Jewish literature and thought of the Second Temple Period, earliest Christianity and the New Testament, early rabbinic Judaism, and more.”
S
SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics-Digital Humanities+ (DH+). “Since 2018, the Digital Humanities+ research group of the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, at Lausanne-Switzerland, fosters the collaboration between Humanities and Bioinformatics researchers around Digital Humanities research projects. Digital Humanities activities have started at Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics in 2015 and have led to open an internal group in October 2018. As a European research partner, DH+ has participated in the H2020 project OPERAS-P on open access (2019-2021). It also develops projects on publication like the eTalks, and on New Testament manuscripts, like the SNSF Swiss National Science Foundation PRIMA project MARK16.”
RESEARCH PROJECTS
A
The Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS). This research project aim is “to create a collections-based repository of information about and images of papyrological materials (e.g., papyri, ostraca, wooden tablets, etc.) located in collections around the world; it was envisaged as a first stage in creating a comprehensive papyrological working environment online APIS contains physical descriptions, provenance, dating, and bibliographic information about these papyri and other written materials, as well as digital images and English translations of many of these texts. For many there is also information about the acquisition history of the objects. APIS includes both published and unpublished material in all languages.”
C
Catena Project. This research project at the University of Birmingham, in Birmingham, United Kingdom, “is undertaking groundbreaking research into collections of commentaries on early New Testament texts. It will investigate ‘catenae’, collections of commentaries that were written alongside New Testament texts written in Greek. These collections were first compiled in the fifth or sixth century and they contain some of the most significant reflections on these texts. The project will have a direct impact on editions of the Greek New Testament, providing a new understanding of its textual transmission and reception, and will lead to broader insights into their history and culture.
Codex Sinaiticus Project. This research project is “an international collaboration to reunite the entire manuscript in digital form and make it accessible to a global audience for the first time. Drawing on the expertise of leading scholars, conservators and curators, the Project gives everyone the opportunity to connect directly with this famous manuscript. The Project has five principal activities: conservation, digitisation, transcription, dissemination. Teams of experts from the UK, Germany, Russia, Egypt and the USA have formed a Project Board and four working parties to plan and direct the project. The four principal partners in the Project are the institutions which hold parts of the manuscript: The British Library, UK, Leipzig University Library, Germany, St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, The National Library of Russia, St Petersburg.”
Codex Zacynthius Project. This research project at the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing of the University of Birmingham in Birmingham, United Kingdom, focuses on the Codex Zacynthius “the oldest manuscript of the Greek New Testament to contain extracts from writings by early Christian theologians, known as a catena, as well as the biblical text. The manuscript was copied around the year 700 and contained the Gospel of Luke, with the extracts written around it in the three outer margins.”
Comparative Oriental Manuscripts Studies (COMSt-Network). This research project at the Universität Hamburg, in Hamburg, Germany, “aims at facilitating cross-cultural academic dialogue and active exchange in the field of oriental manuscript studies, here defining 'oriental' as all non-occidental (non-Latin-based) manuscript cultures which have an immediate historical (‘genetic’) relationship with the Mediterranean codex area. Not only specialists working in different cultural fields but also those dealing with different subdisciplines of manuscript studies combined their expertise working in five internationally composed research teams: 1: codicology and palaeography, 2: philology/text criticism, 3: digital approach to manuscript studies, 4: cataloguing, 5: manuscript preservation.”
E
Early History of the Codex: A New Methodology and Ethics for Manuscript Studies (EthiCodex). This research project led by Dr. Brent Nongbri, Professor of History of Religions at the MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society in Oslo, Norway is “a five-year project set to launch in August 2021. It is designed to place the study of the development and spread of the codex on more reliable foundations.”
ETANA Project. This research project is "a multi-institutional collaborative project initiated in August 2000, as an electronic publishing project designed to enhance the study of the history and culture of the ancient Near East. Funded initially by a planning grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, then by a larger digitization grant from the same foundation, the ETANA web portal was launched in 2001. The founding institutions and associations that conceived and implemented this project were: American Oriental Society, American Schools of Oriental Research, Case Western Reserve University, Cobb Institute of Archeology, Oriental Institute (University of Chicago), Society of Biblical Literature, Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Vanderbilt University Library, Vanderbilt University Press.”
G
Greek New Testament Collation Project. This research project “intends to collate and transcribe all extant manuscripts of the New Testament. Unlike printed critical editions of the Greek New Testament, Internet Greek New Testament Project aims to present the readings of the manuscripts of the New Testament and quotations from the Early Church Fathers in parallel. Their goal is to present all the textual witnesses in one place and help to evaluate the evidence.”
H
HumaReC Project. This Digital Humanities+ research project "developed at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, in Lausanne, Switzerland by an interdisciplinary collaboration between Digital Humanist researchers and researchers in bioinformatics and computer science. How is Humanities research reshaped and transformed by the digital rhythm of data production and publication? HumaReC investigates this question using the test-case of the edition of a unique trilingual Greek, Latin and Arabic New Testament manuscript.”
I
International Greek New Testament Project (IGNTP). This research project “began in 1948, following on from the Critical Greek Testament project of 1926. It consists of a committee of textual scholars from numerous countries who oversee editorial work and contribute their own expertise to the projects.”
Μ
MARK16 Project. This Swiss National Science Foundation PRIMA research project, in Lausanne, Switzerland "develops a new research model in digitized biblical sciences, based on a test case found in the New Testament: the last chapter of the Gospel according to Mark. The goal of the project is to produce new research results on a famous test-case, Mk16, and to create a Virtual Research Environment (VRE), that will be the outputs website for textual criticism and exegesis of Mark 16."
MOTB Greek Paul Project. In this research project by the Museum of the Bible (MOTB) in Washington, DC., USA and the Institüt für Neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF)in Münster, Germany, “through the collaboration, students and professors will participate in the transcription of Greek manuscripts in support of the creation of a modern critical edition of the Pastoral Epistles (1, 2 Timothy and Titus). Intermediate undergraduate students will learn to decipher Greek minuscule script and to transcribe manuscripts in an online environment in a three-week segment of their second-year Greek course. Advanced undergraduate students will dedicate a semester to transcribing Greek manuscripts and writing a paper on an issue germane to New Testament textual criticism and the history of the Greek Bible.”
MOTB Greek Psalter Project. This research project by the Museum of the Bible (MOTB) in Washington, DC., USA and the Institüt für Neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF)in Münster, Germany, “involves students in the study of the Old Greek tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures. Project participants will interact with paleography, translation technique, the textual history of the Old Greek tradition and textual criticism. Possibilities for both pedagogical and research involvement will facilitate the participation of students in both undergraduate and graduate programs.”
P
Paratextual Understanding Project. This research project led by Dr. Garrick Allen, Senior Lecture in New Testament Studies at the University of Glasgow Theology and Religious Studies Department, “explores the relationship between manuscripts, art, and knowledge, funded by the Templeton Religion Trust. This project seeks to understand the way that the paratexts - all features of literature beside the text itself - of a twelfth century Gospel Book Byzantine Manuscript at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland, influence the way readers perceive its message. Paratexts are the important and omnipresent features of all literature in any medium that have drastic consequences for how we read, even though they are often hidden in plain sight.”
T
Titles of the New Testament Project (TiNT). This research project led by Dr. Garrick Allen, Senior Lecture in New Testament Studies at the University of Glasgow, “capitalizes on this variability to provide fresh evidence that informs continuing research on critical issues relevant to biblical studies, theology, reception history, and many other disciplines. The project begins to examine the New Testament’s titles and related paratexts by digitally editing every form of every time in every non-lectionary Greek manuscript that preserves part of the New Testament. They then use this data to contribute to new research related to six primary research questions: 1. The diachronic development of paratextual systems. 2. The provenance of New Testament works in historical imagination. 3. The relationship between bibliography and canon. 4. The design, codicology, and artistic features of manuscripts. 5. Scribal identities and the sociology of textual transmission. 6. Traditions of textual segmentation.”